Irit Dekel
Biographic Data
| ID | 672749 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Irit Dekel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Irit |
| FAMILY NAME | Dekel |
| SIGNATURE | DEKEL I |
| AFFILIATIONS | Friedrich Schiller University Jena |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5045-9755 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 24 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Never, Again: Holocaust Memory’s Restrictions and Replications
The phrase “Never Again” is a floating signifier—flexible enough to carry different meanings for different audiences while remaining specific enough to galvanize various political actions, depending on the context and speakers. “Never Again” is used in different political projects and has the capacity to change the roles of actors and events in them with each signification. The phrase organizes the relations between past and future so that the pa…
Public appearance and witnessing in two Berlin migrant activist groups
This article analyses two Berlin-based migrants’ groups: the International Women* Space and Anu: the literary Middle East Union who, in their memory activism, create witnessing platforms and call for state accountability for its discrimination of refugees and migrants. I examine virtual and in-person events organized by both groups in 2020–2024, reports in the German and international press on those events, as well as the groups’ own publications…
Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust Memory and Muslim Belonging in Postwar Germany . Esra Özyürek
Philosemitism in contemporary German media
This article examines the performance of philosemitism in contemporary Germany through media representations of Jews in 2014–2020. It claims that philosemitism is practiced in Germany as a routine accomplishment of civility. It is performed in three interconnected social domains: institutional, where state institutions declare their commitment to protecting Jews as a religious minority; group, where the contingent relations between love for the J…
The logic of the fight against antisemitism in Germany in three cultural shifts
Although the annual report by the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) stated that 1 per cent of antisemitic incidents in 2021 were characterized as Islamic/Islamist, public accusations of antisemitism are increasingly directed at two groups: (1) designated Others (Muslims and other racialized minorities who seldom engage in anti-Jewish hate crimes) and (2) public intellectuals who are for the mos…
Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism
What Do We Talk About When We Talk about Antisemitism in Germany
The controversy regarding Achille Mbembe’s disinvitation from giving a keynote lecture at the Ruhrtiennale art and music festival has prompted a major discussion regarding antisemitism in the Germa
Circumcising the body: Negotiating difference and belonging in Germany
The circumcision debate in Germany in 2012 is an exemplary case for symbolic struggles over national boundaries. The debate became a site for the negotiation of traditions practiced by religious minorities. We ask, first, how the clinical gaze constitutes Muslim and Jewish others. Second, we investigate how ‘writing around’ the debate’s center, bodily integrity, became meaningful through analogies to other practices said to harm it. We compare ne…
Moving gender: Home museums and the construction of their inhabitants
Home museums in Israel and Germany produce a representational space in which the public figure, usually a ‘great man,’ is effectively ‘dragged home’ to the so-called private sphere so as to make the domestic worthy of musealization. Based on three years of ethnographic research in nine such museums (four in Israel and five in Germany), this article shows that when the sphere most identified with women is represented through the life and work of t…
Quoting and Telling Mediating Techniques of Tour Guides in German Home Museums
Tour guides in home museums perform a special mediating role: they connect past and present through stories that mark both proximity and distance from them. This paper is based on ethnographic research in four home museums in Germany, those of Konrad Adenauer, Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel, Albert Einstein, and Kaethe Kollwitz. I analyze the performance of guides quoting the words, either written or allegedly spoken, of home museums’ protagoni…
A living place: On the sociology of atmosphere in home museums
A darkened room, a cane, a hat on a bed: such items, former belongings of famous individuals, are presented in home museums in Israel and Germany. Such scenes are made to appear authentic through the mediation of objects and stories, which render them relatable to visitors but also strange and uncanny. Home museums are sites for the study of the sociology of atmosphere, which is constructed through what we term temporal multitude – linking storie…
Jews and Other Others at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin
Is the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin a Jewish space? How are Jews presented there? What are the points of interest about Jews in the memorial from the perspective of the foundation that runs it as well as from various visitors' perspectives? This article focuses on interaction and performance at the memorial, an understudied topic in comparison to what the memorial presents in its installation and the debates that preceded its realisation. I argue…
Ways of looking: Observation and transformation at the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin
Observation is one of the core actions at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Observing fellow visitors, photographing and looking at photos at the memorial transcend its actual time and probe its space and the boundaries of discourse about the past. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article focuses on the ways visitors experience the memorial, and argues that in taking and looking at photos at the memorial and observing other visitors and the …
Ways of looking: Observation and transformation at the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin
Observation is one of the core actions at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Observing fellow visitors, photographing and looking at photos at the memorial transcend its actual time and probe its space and the boundaries of discourse about the past. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article focuses on the ways visitors experience the memorial, and argues that in taking and looking at photos at the memorial and observing other visitors and the …
Philosemitism in contemporary German media
This article examines the performance of philosemitism in contemporary Germany through media representations of Jews in 2014–2020. It claims that philosemitism is practiced in Germany as a routine accomplishment of civility. It is performed in three interconnected social domains: institutional, where state institutions declare their commitment to protecting Jews as a religious minority; group, where the contingent relations between love for the J…
The logic of the fight against antisemitism in Germany in three cultural shifts
Although the annual report by the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) stated that 1 per cent of antisemitic incidents in 2021 were characterized as Islamic/Islamist, public accusations of antisemitism are increasingly directed at two groups: (1) designated Others (Muslims and other racialized minorities who seldom engage in anti-Jewish hate crimes) and (2) public intellectuals who are for the mos…
What Do We Talk About When We Talk about Antisemitism in Germany
The controversy regarding Achille Mbembe’s disinvitation from giving a keynote lecture at the Ruhrtiennale art and music festival has prompted a major discussion regarding antisemitism in the Germa
Circumcising the body: Negotiating difference and belonging in Germany
The circumcision debate in Germany in 2012 is an exemplary case for symbolic struggles over national boundaries. The debate became a site for the negotiation of traditions practiced by religious minorities. We ask, first, how the clinical gaze constitutes Muslim and Jewish others. Second, we investigate how ‘writing around’ the debate’s center, bodily integrity, became meaningful through analogies to other practices said to harm it. We compare ne…
Moving gender: Home museums and the construction of their inhabitants
Home museums in Israel and Germany produce a representational space in which the public figure, usually a ‘great man,’ is effectively ‘dragged home’ to the so-called private sphere so as to make the domestic worthy of musealization. Based on three years of ethnographic research in nine such museums (four in Israel and five in Germany), this article shows that when the sphere most identified with women is represented through the life and work of t…
A living place: On the sociology of atmosphere in home museums
A darkened room, a cane, a hat on a bed: such items, former belongings of famous individuals, are presented in home museums in Israel and Germany. Such scenes are made to appear authentic through the mediation of objects and stories, which render them relatable to visitors but also strange and uncanny. Home museums are sites for the study of the sociology of atmosphere, which is constructed through what we term temporal multitude – linking storie…
Ways of looking: Observation and transformation at the Holocaust Memorial, Berlin
Observation is one of the core actions at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Observing fellow visitors, photographing and looking at photos at the memorial transcend its actual time and probe its space and the boundaries of discourse about the past. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, this article focuses on the ways visitors experience the memorial, and argues that in taking and looking at photos at the memorial and observing other visitors and the …
Jews and Other Others at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin
Is the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin a Jewish space? How are Jews presented there? What are the points of interest about Jews in the memorial from the perspective of the foundation that runs it as well as from various visitors' perspectives? This article focuses on interaction and performance at the memorial, an understudied topic in comparison to what the memorial presents in its installation and the debates that preceded its realisation. I argue…
A living place: On the sociology of atmosphere in home museums
A darkened room, a cane, a hat on a bed: such items, former belongings of famous individuals, are presented in home museums in Israel and Germany. Such scenes are made to appear authentic through the mediation of objects and stories, which render them relatable to visitors but also strange and uncanny. Home museums are sites for the study of the sociology of atmosphere, which is constructed through what we term temporal multitude – linking storie…
Quoting and Telling Mediating Techniques of Tour Guides in German Home Museums
Tour guides in home museums perform a special mediating role: they connect past and present through stories that mark both proximity and distance from them. This paper is based on ethnographic research in four home museums in Germany, those of Konrad Adenauer, Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel, Albert Einstein, and Kaethe Kollwitz. I analyze the performance of guides quoting the words, either written or allegedly spoken, of home museums’ protagoni…
Circumcising the body: Negotiating difference and belonging in Germany
The circumcision debate in Germany in 2012 is an exemplary case for symbolic struggles over national boundaries. The debate became a site for the negotiation of traditions practiced by religious minorities. We ask, first, how the clinical gaze constitutes Muslim and Jewish others. Second, we investigate how ‘writing around’ the debate’s center, bodily integrity, became meaningful through analogies to other practices said to harm it. We compare ne…
Moving gender: Home museums and the construction of their inhabitants
Home museums in Israel and Germany produce a representational space in which the public figure, usually a ‘great man,’ is effectively ‘dragged home’ to the so-called private sphere so as to make the domestic worthy of musealization. Based on three years of ethnographic research in nine such museums (four in Israel and five in Germany), this article shows that when the sphere most identified with women is represented through the life and work of t…
What Do We Talk About When We Talk about Antisemitism in Germany
The controversy regarding Achille Mbembe’s disinvitation from giving a keynote lecture at the Ruhrtiennale art and music festival has prompted a major discussion regarding antisemitism in the Germa
Philosemitism in contemporary German media
This article examines the performance of philosemitism in contemporary Germany through media representations of Jews in 2014–2020. It claims that philosemitism is practiced in Germany as a routine accomplishment of civility. It is performed in three interconnected social domains: institutional, where state institutions declare their commitment to protecting Jews as a religious minority; group, where the contingent relations between love for the J…
The logic of the fight against antisemitism in Germany in three cultural shifts
Although the annual report by the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) stated that 1 per cent of antisemitic incidents in 2021 were characterized as Islamic/Islamist, public accusations of antisemitism are increasingly directed at two groups: (1) designated Others (Muslims and other racialized minorities who seldom engage in anti-Jewish hate crimes) and (2) public intellectuals who are for the mos…
Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism
Public appearance and witnessing in two Berlin migrant activist groups
This article analyses two Berlin-based migrants’ groups: the International Women* Space and Anu: the literary Middle East Union who, in their memory activism, create witnessing platforms and call for state accountability for its discrimination of refugees and migrants. I examine virtual and in-person events organized by both groups in 2020–2024, reports in the German and international press on those events, as well as the groups’ own publications…
Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust Memory and Muslim Belonging in Postwar Germany . Esra Özyürek
Never, Again: Holocaust Memory’s Restrictions and Replications
The phrase “Never Again” is a floating signifier—flexible enough to carry different meanings for different audiences while remaining specific enough to galvanize various political actions, depending on the context and speakers. “Never Again” is used in different political projects and has the capacity to change the roles of actors and events in them with each signification. The phrase organizes the relations between past and future so that the pa…
Sociology (10 works) · History (9 works) · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration (8 works) · History (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Art (6 works) · Judaism (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Law (6 works)